Humanist at Play

I see it now

2010-08-10T19:51:00.002-04:00

I get it, major political parties. I see the game you two are playing.

Republicans are perfectly content to cater to their fringe elements, because they know that mainstream Republicans simply hate Democrats and will, therefore, automatically vote Republican (also because Republicans appear to be powerless now, they will get the sympathy, underdog vote).

Democrats are pandering to their mainstream, centrist majority, because their fringe element doesn't really have a viable choice.

One is crazy, the other is spineless.

You know, at least in the much-maligned France there are many options and you don't feel like a total loser for voting "Greens" on election day. How is this country of my adopted citizenship functioning on the premise of "the lesser of two evils"?

Country is simply too big. Turn it into a confederation and make states bigger and more self-reliant. The Northeast should be one. The Midwest. The South. Texas. Etc.

The other girl...

2010-08-10T16:44:00.003-04:00

Oh, hello, blog! I'm sorry it's been a while. You see, I've found someone else. Someone who understands me a little better. Someone who doesn't ask me to think, doesn't ask me to give. Someone who gives to ME and all it asks in return is that I press "OK" a few times.

You see, blog, I've found instant streaming on Netflix. Also, I've found regular working gigs, but work isn't what's keeping me away from you, blog. It's Netflix. I don't know how to describe our relationship to you, blog. I'm afraid you wouldn't understand. It's just...perfect.

We've had our share of good times and I'll never forget you. The way I would sometimes tag my posts with words. Or the way I'd post pictures on your bare background while nobody was watching us. Those were special moments.

But they all seem so mundane, when compared to the glory of ... well, you know who. You might accuse me of being just another "man" with my constant need for instant gratification. And maybe you're right. But you also left me wanting, blog. When I asked you for "The State: Complete Series", you disgustedly gave me an error message. Remember that? And Netflix presented me with it on a silver platter. My needs are greater than you, blog. I hope you find happiness with someone else. Maybe I could come by every now and then and we could spend time.

I'd like to remain friends...

Monday Bible school

2010-07-26T20:15:00.000-04:00

God created all things, including dildos.

I killed the radio star

2010-07-25T14:11:00.002-04:00

I've had a problem when I was in my late teens (only one) that I never quite got over. When the DJ would interrupt the flow of music and start thanking me for listening to their crappy, interruption-filled radio station, I'd always wonder two things:

1. How do they know that I'm listening?

and once I figured out that I WAS, indeed, listening and they caught me in the act

2. Why do they assume that I am intentionally listening??

I feel like I, personally, am providing validation for their existence. I am justifying their excitement at having me listen. I am the reason for their job. And I just don't want that responsibility. And I still haven't gotten over it.

But other than that, no problems in life.

dilemma of the day

2010-07-21T13:34:00.002-04:00

Do I work shirtless or put something on? The trials and tribulations of working from home....

Follow that Oxford Dictionary to fun!

2010-07-20T12:14:00.004-04:00

A simple fun idea would be to follow certain idiomatic phrases' meanings to their alternate interpretations.

"Dress up" would literally mean dressing from the bottom up. While that makes sense for your lower underwear, women would have a harder time with their bras and everyone would have difficulty fitting into their t-shirts.

Correction: that would be fun only once. And I'm not even sure it's an idiom. Unless you were doing it "to the nines".

What about "eating your words"? I guess I could make them into delicious, baklava-based letters that spell "you are an asshole" (What are "words delivered to your boss during work hours"? Correct, for another $500). Mmm...that's a lot of baklava. That one's fun.

"Bend Over Backwards" could lead to serious injury.
Same for "Break a Leg".

"Drive someone up the wall" is a good one. "Keep someone on the wall" is even more fun, though with a much higher degree of difficulty.

I guess I should "Pull the Plug" on this one.

Thanks, IdiomSite.com! That was fun.

Feline misinterpretation

2010-07-19T17:27:00.004-04:00

So I now have a cat. Or, rather, the cat has me. I was adopted, at the ripe age of whatever-I-am old. And now she (we checked) is sitting around and communicating at a pretty regular click. Here's what she's saying:

"Meow!"

It's not a surprising verbal response from a cat. In fact, we'd need a trip to the vet to confirm that she's not dying of a case of cancerously spreading love for us if she wasn't saying "Meow!" But in the land of anthropomorphising pet owners, I also seek a human equivalent of what my cat is saying to me. And I found it. It's

"Hey!"

The entire vocabulary of this cat is "Hey!", expressed in a variety of deliveries ("HEY!", "heeeey...", "Hey?", etc), decibel levels and accompanied by a combination of looks, ear positions and tail-contortions. But, really, it all boils down to a simple "Hey!"

Now, some people may consider this a breakthrough. Finally, someone has gotten into the small brain of a feline (surrounded by a skull that they apparently LOVE to have scratched. "Meow!") to understand what it's saying. But if you stubbornly pursue the path of anthropomorphism, you have to admit the difficulty of interpreting a human's "Hey!" Maybe I will attempt to test the limits of a conversation, one side of which is entirely based on the word "hey", tonight in the company of my life partner. Maybe I should properly document it in a video format, accessible for all to see. Food for thought...

All this to say that I have no idea what this cat wants. At the very least I have discovered that "Hey!" is not just for horses.

Who's that tea-pouring professional?

2010-07-16T13:41:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting here, working on my professional website and realizing that it doesn't reflect me as much as I would want some Javascript to reflect me. Javascript!!! The inability to create my own website has forced me into the warm, but false, embrace of a template. Which begs the question, what template do I fit into? In this particular case, I am trying to squeeze my unwilling professional representation virtual body into something that just isn't me.

In part, of course, because I don't know a single thing about using Javascript and Flash to create websites. Thus the somewhat helpful templates of Picaholic. At the very least I keep looking at myself as a 6-year-old boy with a neat haircut playing tea party with my dollies. That element is my attempt at personalizing the page. Without that picture I would be just another button pusher. This way I am a button pusher with a suspected doll fetish.

....

On second thought, this template represents me perfectly.

ilya's professional webpage

Buns

2010-05-19T13:21:00.002-04:00

There is no denying it. I love buns. I heart buns more than the New York Tourism Board hearts its source of income. More than Mary hearts Billy. And when you put butter on buns? Fuhgettaboutit!

Give me a gift of buns and I will be your friend. But don't give me shit buns. Fresh, slightly crispy buns with a warm, lightly soggy middle. Mmmm....buns.

Oops, I think I spilled something

2010-05-11T09:29:00.003-04:00

Before anyone else mentions it (I'm going to avoid searching the internet for anyone saying it, thus allowing myself to be the first), I just want to point out that this oil spill in the Gulf is to alternative fuels what 9/11 was to the war on terror. I'm predicting this right now. This will galvanize the government to spend more money on solar/wind/whatever to reduce dependence on oil.

Sure, there were efforts to fight terrorism before 9/11, but there wasn't a Patriot Act, because nothing on the scale of 9/11 happened to prod it.

And sure, there have been decades of efforts to encourage greener energy, but this catastrophic spill will definitely result in some heavy-hitting by either the whiny babies that inhabit our Congress or the environmental groups (flush with money from people newly horrified by photos of oil-covered marine/bird life).

And you know what? Good for us.

P.S. Anyone making this comparison from now on will have to cite me. Or I'll go all BP on their asses.

grounds for a lawsuit

2010-04-28T09:19:00.002-04:00

Of all the frivolous grounds for a lawsuit, I think I may have found my personal favorite the other day. It's a bit shaky, but stay with me.

So this new project I'm on is located in one of those buildings where you have to get a key to go to the bathroom on the floor. That, in and of itself, is somehow illegal. But this particular bathroom is particularly abhorrent in its treatment of bathroom tourists. It doesn't have a smell, it stocks enough soap, it ran out of paper towels once, but more than made up for it in the amount of toilet paper. There don't even seem to be any spots where various men managed to miss the urinal from 6 inches away.

But it has really small toilets.

I don't want to do any research, but I'm pretty sure sizes of toilet seats are not regulated. And it is high time that they were. I am not a fat man by any stretch of an anorexic imagination, but (and I'm sorry to say this publicly) my butt doesn't fit on this toilet. This toilet is too small for my butt. My butt overflows the seat, as it were. This may be too much information for some, but I think someone needed to come out in favor of wider toilets. And so it might as well be me. I am tired, after 2 days, of having this toilet tell me I'm fat. Even I have feelings.

And this being The United States of America, god damn it, the best way to get what you want is to sue. So as soon as I stop blogging off of this toilet seat, I'm going to make some phone calls.

For future surveys

2010-04-25T15:51:00.003-04:00

There is a recurring question on some surveys that has to do with things that "most people would be surprised to learn about you" or that are "the strangest/weirdest about you" or some variation on the theme. All for the purpose of making you appear more interesting than you really are.

And while I almost never fill out those surveys, that particular question has always nagged at me. I never have an answer, leading me to believe that, contrary to my daily affirmations, I am less interesting than I think I am.

I have finally thought of something that "most people would be surprised to learn about me" and it only confirms my life-long, sneaking suspicion.

You see, the strange thing that I do is that I like taking showers before working out or performing any kind of manual labor. If I bike to work in the morning, I'll shower. If I'm going to the gym, I'll shower, if I'm planting basil, I will most likely shower. It's not a universal trait, it's really more likely to happen in the morning (when I tend to shower). Nevertheless, I get a strong feeling of disgust with myself if I start sweating on my two-wheeled friend without showering.

I decided to explore that in more detail and the only [completely ir-]rational explanation I could come up with is that I like to keep track of my sweat. That a new sweat-causing activity requires a fresh start, a fresh count. That a sense of accomplishment after a 9-mile ride to work is diminished by the fear that most of the sweat, dirt and smell I have acquired along the way was already there to start with. And if so, what have I really accomplished?

That last question reminds me of a high school football coach in Mississippi, who, after a 10-0 season, lamented to the cameras "We haven't accomplished anything."

Oh, I think you have, sir, I think you have.

And was this worth a blog entry?

Oh, I think it was, sir, I think it was.

Oh, you're still here?

2010-04-25T15:50:00.002-04:00

The wonders of the internet - this crap is still online. On a particularly chilly, rainy, dank, depressing Sunday, this seems like a good place to go.

safety in obscurity

2009-11-17T21:24:00.002-04:00

The nice thing about this particular under-performing, 2-year-old blog is that it has not been hit by spam yet. If only nuclear warheads were this discerning, I wouldn't have to subject myself to 2 full days of "The Road" - the single most depressing (yet somehow truly appealing) book I've ever read. Luckily, spam is nothing like nuclear warheads, carried on the muscular shoulders of ICBMs, so even if it did strike me, I wouldn't be terribly upset.

and for my next trick....

2009-11-17T21:23:00.002-04:00

I've decided. I'm going to plant some fucking garlic.

Booya.

the deep depths of profundity

2009-09-02T21:50:00.002-04:00

You know the times when you get dragged towards being philosophical and the meaning of things seems awfully close? You're about to grasp something, but your brain is muddled in just the right way to prevent any real revelations? I'm going through that right now.

You get triggers on the way. Mine were

1. An article about Spike Jonze. (Really? Yes.) Apparently, this adult is like a child in his approach to the questions of creativity in a grown-up world. That's both profound in what it says about society's expectations of the paths to success (the man didn't go to college, nor get a proper arts education) and profoundly unprofound (he is of fairly well-to-do parents, though how much his parents' money played into his success is anybody's guess. I'd like to think little. I am awful at guessing.) I think the desire to have a child's perspective is a dip into warm, soothing philosophy that adults welcome from time to time, unable to truly return to the innocence, the expectation that everything will work out. Still, it gets you thinking along a certain path.

2. Three beers and some delicious malaysian food. Because if you're going to be profound, you need to be either an expert on profundities with a degree to show for it or drunk. You could also pretend, in which case you're a bag for the express purpose of douching (which i might be. i'm very bag-like).

3. My first ever reading of the very first chapter of Robert A. Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land". His description of a Martian's thought process strikes me as genuine. The perspectives that one encounters appear new and challenging. They appear child-like, innocent, fresh, open. Basically different from the overwhelming sense of competition and individual gain that we encounter in daily lives. The sense of wonder that we fail to experience on a regular basis. It makes you think about other views on life. Or, it makes you realize that if these views of the main character were really Martian, you would not be able to understand them even if they were written in English and that Heinlein is just making it all up. That his profundity levels are shallow enough for someone hopped up on 3 beers and malaysian food to consider them profound.

You see the dilemma? You want to pontificate on these profound triggers, but the beer and the self-doubt that is borne of adulthood really mess with your train of thought.

...

Malaysian food, man. Really good stuff.

Unwanted things

2009-08-31T11:08:00.002-04:00

So there's this itch I've been meaning to scratch and you know how they say you shouldn't scratch it lest it get worse? I ignore those people. We've had two items that neither one of us has really wanted to consume - a single can of an energy drink and a single pack of cancer sticks. In a drunken, drugged-out stupor it may occur to me to use them in a misguided, pathetic attempt to prove that I'm still "full of life" and "cool" (I am), but since I am now wise enough to combine drinking and drugging only once every few blue moons, it probably won't happen.

So I thought I'd post the ad on Craigslist's "free" forum. You know, "come and get free energy drink and unopened pack of cancer sticks" or something.

(Well, to be more precise, this is what it said:

"I have one unopened, untainted can of Red Bull that will never be consumed. Ever. Ever-ever.

Want it? E-mail me. It beckons to you, urging you to drink it all, get your wiiiings and go crazy. In the safety of your own home, you can combine it with vodka and test your body's natural defenses. Do whatever. Just get it out of my fridge. Please.

Thanks.

....

I mean, who brings a can of Red Bull as a gift? Maybe it's a trick and they knowingly donated it, expecting to see something like this on Craigslist. You win, stranger.

Oh, I also have an unopened pack of Marlboro menthols. Which will also go unused, but in a much more emphatic way. You can have that for free as well. Red Bull and Marlboro Menthols. It's a combination made in self-destruction heaven.")

And you know what amazing discovery I have made? People want free stuff. This isn't scientific in any way, of course. I do not have a control group, for example, which I hear is important.

So here I sit now, in the comfort of my own home, wondering if responding to the half-dozen potentially crazy people was intelligent and if I didn't just infect my itch with the scratch. I do have an overactive imagination, though, so I probably have nothing to fear from someone who will go out of their way to get free Red Bull and a pack of menthol smokes.

Although, I bet if I drank half the can and smoked a few of those menthols, I'd be a little more paranoid....

new website

2009-08-21T16:31:00.004-04:00

Yes, I have a new website, where you can see all of my exciting work, but the website I'm referring to is one I accidentally typed in a few days ago.

http://gmail.yahoo.com

It doesn't exist. Don't try it, because it won't work. But it gave me yet another brilliant idea. I should buy all of these combo URLs that incorporate rival domains.

intel.amd.com
cia.deptofjustice.gov
microsoft.apple.net
political-education.american-public.org

Something along those lines. I'd be paying a lot of money for a very small-scale joke, but I'd laugh every time. Until Microsoft and Apple, in a Federal Trade Commission-defying move, decide they're best friends and start shopping for a website. Guess what, suckas? Pay up!!

Oh, it'll happen.

Magic Goode

2009-08-14T08:15:00.002-04:00

I thought of this as I was waking up, listening to something completely unrelated on NPR. 'Magic Goode,' I thought, 'what a name der fantastiche!'

What's the definition? Being mostly awake at this point, I think I may have forgotten it. But let me try to reconstruct it.

A 'Magic Goode' (is 'magique goode' even better?) is one that produces a sense of wonderment, rather than simple enjoyment. So if you like ice cream, buying it from a beach vendor is enjoyable, but does not constitute a 'magic goode'. However, meeting a friend of yours who suddenly appears behind you with a cone of delicious, decadent cream-based frozen good is the perfect example.

So I suppose these are everyday things that give you a tangle of unexpected warm, gooey tingles inside.

Of course, if you do receive a rug that happens to also be a transportation vessel, that's clearly a 'magic goode'. But mostly because of the unexpected additional benefit that you may not even discover for years to come. In fact, if you own a rug, I highly recommend taking it out for a spin. You never know.

Into the fray once again, my friends

2009-08-07T13:18:00.002-04:00

Here I sit, listening to "Hindi Radio Mera Sangeet" on iTunes, aching from my morning 14-mile bike ride (panzy) and getting ready for work. And what better way to restart my blog than with the mundane?

Although, what's not mundane is this pain I have in my tuckus bone. I mean, I just took a ride on the bike - the same thing I've been doing all summer - and suddenly I have a tuckus bone pain?

I just like saying tuckus.

Things that happened today so far:

1. 14-mile bike ride
2. Some lady helped me ride faster by pushing me along with her van. Nobody got hurt, but I hope her feelings did, as I was yelling at her
3. Made chopped cabbage, mayo, boiled potato salad with dill, salt, thyme, per Luisa's recipe. Ate it and liked it. Probably mostly due to the mayo.
4. Washed floors for second time this week. Because if you wash floors only once a week, you might as well pee on them, you dirty monster.
5. Did laundry
6. Worked on music video (this is me looking into the future now)

So welcome back to me.

momentous

2009-01-14T13:55:00.002-04:00

Dear Diary,

I stepped in poop today. I thought nobody pooped outside in the winter? I am sad.

Leave my events alone!

2009-01-08T12:09:00.002-04:00

I don't know why, but I get annoyed at people's appropriation of events. Take 9/11. Before 2001, it was just a date. The day before my mother's birthday, for instance, or that Friday when I got a hummer from a tranny, for another instance that doesn't apply to me. Of course, after 2001 it signifies a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers, a downed plane and an attack on some other building whose significance escapes me and everyone knows that.

But people are jumping on the bandwagon of 9/11 like it's the cool thing to do. 7/7 becomes "London's 9/11". 11/26 is "Mumbai's 9/11". I mean, aside from not having the phonetic coolness of 9/11, which simply rolls off the tongue (do you think that's why the terrorists picked it? Hmmm....), what's wrong with just calling it "the attacks of 7/7"? Own your date! Embrace it! Don't make it into something it's not by appropriating someone else's terrorist attack. Other people's terrorist dates aren't "cool".

People are becoming too nonchalant about their associations with this stuff. I just want to prevent an occasion when some neighbour's intentional placement of household cleaners on the Goldfarbstein lawn and their subsequent deadly effect on the 5 Goldfarbstein household pets gets named "The Goldfarbstein Household 9/11 Holocaust" in the local community center's bulletin.

I don't know why I made that family more Jewish than the state of Israel. So sue me.

Get an abortion (check)!!

2009-01-08T12:03:00.003-04:00

Courtesy of my lovely partner's internetZ searching skills comes this purchasing gem. Don't miss out on this opportunity to write donation checks to your local Planned Parenthood, while telling them they're going to hell.

Pro-Life Zingers Checks are no-doubt still available. And stock up, because you can never get enough bad anti-choice humour.

Kittens - Day 2

2008-11-24T14:03:00.002-04:00

An addendum to the previous post. I made the rookie mistake of petting one of the kittens on the stomach. Please refrain from any such activity if you don't like the sight of your own blood.

(Friday night - Saturday night)

The night wasn't particularly restful again. The kittens found our bedroom plants just as appealing as those in the living room. So on they went with the digging. Certainly, if I knew the value of kitten-aeration, I would've patented the idea a long time ago. As it happens, though, I was more concerned with sleep, of which I still managed to get a little. In fact, I'll just admit that I slept in until 10 or 11. The kittens didn't mind. In retrospect, I understand why. There was more dirt to dig up in the living room, where they migrated early in the morning. I may have to clean every day, huh? On top of that (and pardon my French here), but their shit SMELLS! I've used the better half of our baking soda to try and cover up what has got to be a chemical weapon under Geneva Convention standards.

I attempted to do some yoga to stretch my largely-unstretched back, but upward-facing dog is difficult to achieve when you have a downward-sitting cat on your mat. Walter didn't really understand what I was doing, so he insisted on a closer look. Thanks for making this less meditational than it should be, kitten. You ARE the center of attention. I think even the instructor paused to wonder at the cuteness that is you.

I don't know if you're aware, but there is NOTHING to watch on Saturday morning/afternoon, so the kittens and I slowly drifted into a mid-day stupor. They even stopped playing with the bathrobe sash that Luisa generously contributed to the kitten-sitting cause. I know that when I look back on this week, the sash will be the straw that I used to hang on to sanity as it was being mauled by two cuddle-icious kittens.

But I'm off to work and then drinking. The kittens will once again fend for themselves for a good 12 hours. They don't seem to mind. Finally used to the environment, they seem to accept being in a completely different location with a certain upper-caste boredom.

Also, I started moving plants out of reach. Doesn't seem right that they should be abused on this scale. The question is, what is "out of reach" for two creative, energetic, determined kittens? I guess we'll find out when I come back from drinking. In the meantime, I vacuum the dirt left behind and hope that my Dyson doesn't choke on it. Don't lose your suction!!

Ok, off to work. Good night, kittens!

Kittens - Day 1

2008-11-24T13:50:00.003-04:00

Dear blogosphere,

I've been put in charge of caring for two adorable kittens this week, while their owners are away. Food and litter elements were provided, all I have to do was open my heart to kitten love. I believe the door's already cracked open just a bit, I'm sure these cutesters will rip it off its hinges.

(So day 1 was actually Thursday night-Friday, but I'm only now getting to a point where blogging doesn't seem like a horrible chore, just a regular one. Also, it's too cold in my office to do any real work, so blogging it is)

Luisa has left for a week of family-time and I am all alone with the kittens. I spent the night on the couch and they seemed pretty tame. This may yet be a piece of cake. I didn't sleep very well, but that was mostly my fault for stressing over the possibility that the kittens will fail to move when I rotate my gigantic body and be crushed under the mammoth weight.

After filling their water and food bowls, I leave the in the hands of Fates as I go to work, hoping they're not dead when I return.

I return and they're still alive. THEY'RE ALIVE! We play, watch TV and generally enjoy each other's company. One thing to keep in mind - they don't watch TV. Imagine watching TV in a room with a person who doesn't enjoy it but wants the company. Impossible. They'll talk your ear off and you'll miss all the dialogue from whatever movie you're watching for the 6th time. Kittens - much the same. No biggie. I should really pay attention to them anyway. I only have them for a week and then my exposure to cuteness will be limited by my access to The Daily Kitten.

Small problem - they apparently really like the plants we have on the floor. Enough to start digging them up. Dirt and leaves are everywhere, although it's more leaves and those are mostly dead. Our laziness in keeping the plants healthy is paying off - the kittens have something to play with. I should clean that up soon, however. Ok, off to bed.

million strong

2008-10-13T20:55:00.003-04:00

I want to know who truly thinks that creating a Facebook "Million strong for..." group will affect the world. A million is not an impressive number anymore. In a world, where national debt is being counted in trillions, the richest people's worth in tens of billions and the population of an increasingly globalised and intermixed world in "just" billions, who pays attention to a "million"?

Even I, a person who will most likely not ever see their first million earned in this lifetime, consider it to be a low number. Let's up the ante here, people. Facebook has tens of millions of unique users. Let's not set our sights so low as to try and engage only 1/300th of the US population in an issue, a belief, a cause or a pet peeve. Ambition is how this country got to where it is (Option 1: beacon of freedom, richest nation in the world, land of opportunity. Option 2: opportunistic imperialist, most hated nation in the world, land of inequity)!

Should I, as a next step, create a Facebook group called "100 Million strong for putting the Million Strong groups in their place"?

Today's wishlist for Santa

2008-10-02T14:50:00.003-04:00

I wish

...there were photos of Sarah Palin standing on a rocky outcrop at the edge of Alaska, peering into the greyness of the Bering Strait, looking for Russia.

...that people who don't deserve to be laid off weren't.

...that the morally-retarded fat cats of Wall Street, getting paid tens of millions of dollars for jobs that shouldn't be worth that much, would admit that they're moral retards. They can still get paid tens of millions of dollars (they ARE supporting the service economy, after all), just as long as they feel bad about it.

...that formatting external hard drives to work with both Macs and PCs was as easy as spelling "Mac" and "PC".

...that I could rap like Talib Kweli and choose not use it.

...upon a star.

...for peace on earth.

...for a piece of watermelon.

...I didn't play dumb, thinking that one piece of watermelon would satisfy me.

...I had an entire, juicy watermelon all to myself.

...the economy was stronger. Buck up, economy! Go the gym, or something.

...there wasn't work I was avoiding. Is there? I wish I couldn't remember what it was.

Children!!

2008-09-29T12:52:00.003-04:00

So Luisa and I went volunteering this weekend. My two adventures through New York Cares this year have been planting trees and planting seeds of knowledge in children. I don't want to insult any children, but I'm leaning slightly to the trees side. Mostly because trees are less work. In detail...

We were supposed to go apple picking. Awesome. I love being outside and picking delicious things - apples, strawberries, even potatoes. It's like reaching into a fridge and pulling out food ready to eat. It's lazy and, therefore, extremely appealing. Of course, when you're out picking the fruit, it's like bending down, opening the fridge and reaching for something several dozen times. Or a thousand, if that's your form of employment. That gets tiresome. But I still like it.

We didn't do that. Instead, we got rained out (what, the kids can't take a little rain? Fragile, 8-year-old creatures!) and instead we went to the Museum of Natural History. I have mixed feelings about the museum for several reasons, not the least of which is the big negative fact that too many 8-year-olds go there. However, it's also pretty magnificent and their recent special exhibits have been fascinating. Plus, kids are funny. So off we went on 3 subway lines from Bed-Stuy to the Upper West Side.

For all the work that kids are, they can be really funny in many different ways. There's the obvious way - humor. How can you remain impartial to the classic "Why did the cat eat the grass?" joke (the answer: "Because it was hungry')? Then there's the imagination. To quote one of my charges, Alex: "And then there would be these cannons that would shoot a ball down Marcy Ave and the balls are full of robotic scorpions and they would explode and all the scorpions would go 'Bam!' and...." At which point I instructed him to use his "inside voice". Alex is a little loud. But very creative.

If you have more than one child and you think it's a fantastic idea to take your 1+ kids to the Museum of Natural History on a Saturday, don't. Turn around and go to your local park, stopping at your house on the way there to pick up that book about dinosaurs your child loves. Then proceed to read the book and recreate pictures of the said dinosaurs in the sand. To scale. See? It's like being in a museum. Then take a day off and go to AMNH on a weekday, in the hopes that there will be fewer kids around.

We didn't follow that bit of wisdom and, clutching to the children's hands ventured in. The good thing was having an activity to perform - a scavenger hunt - that kept the kids occupied for, oh, 45 minutes. At some point you start getting tired of figuring out which latin names for ancient creatures fit into the empty slots on your paper. I fully admit that I let both Alex and Precious cheat off me. I'd make a terrible teacher, but then again - that's why I'm in a solitary profession.

The big hurdle came when both kids lost interest and wanted to go home. Now! How do you convince them that a skeleton of a reticulated python is not just interesting, but also worth writing the name down. I decided to pick one of the two and explained how reticulated pythons are interesting, abandoning the scavenger hunt idea entirely and focusing on all the dead animals. "Do you guys know how a reticulated python kills its prey?" I said and eagerly looked in their faces. That was my approach. When interest fades, talk about horrible ways of dying. They bought it, too. The rest of the trip was much more enjoyable as we discussed how scary this or that exhibit is and how a giant squid eats ships (thank you, Alex) and is generally very frightening.

By the end, both the kids and the volunteers were pretty exhausted and on the way back there was a lot less noise than on the way there. Having to hold their hands for 5 hours, I was looking forward to the end for one simple reason in particular - when you hold someone's hand, they really trust and like you, right? I was imagining hugs and tearful good-byes and promises to see each other again. I know, I don't spend enough time with kids. I should know better. Precious abandoned me half-way from the subway back to the school building, jumped in the car and if she waved good-bye at some point, the rain must've covered it up with a non-existent wall of water. I was so taken aback by this that I can't even recall how Alex got picked up.

And that was the end. It was a relief to have the rest of the afternoon be kid-free and I can't even lie and say that the experience of the morning touched me in a particular way. I'll definitely volunteer with kids again, but I now know better to set my expectations lower and be prepared for exhausting trips. And when we finally have tearful good-byes (I'll probably be the one shedding the tears), I'll appreciate them that much more.

Next weekend? Pumpkin picking, if Luisa has anything to say about our plans. I don't think I've ever reached into a fridge to pick a pumpkin....

what do I know?

2008-09-19T14:00:00.006-04:00

That's the question I ask myself on a regular basis. What do I know and who am I to make decisions for other people (the unfortunate extension of that question is "who am I to make decisions for myself")? Recently, I've come to realise something traumatic - you HAVE to know things as an adult. That's what being an adult really is - having the ability to make a decision and back it up with either just hard-headed attitude (see GWBush) or concrete knowledge. One's confidence in that knowledge also has to be backed up by a fair-amount of hard-headed attitude (see Henry Kissinger, maybe?).

I suppose my problem is with those two examples. Those are adults who are widely considered to have made bad decisions. Terrible decisions, in fact. I mean, there are worse people and worse decisions, but I want to stay out of the realm of the criminal and the insane. Both W and Kissinger can probably be considered decent/well-meaning people (not Dick Cheney. He's all too appropriately named.) Yet here they are, making adult decisions that turn out to be terrible.

So what should give me the confidence that choices made by me won't be terrible? What gives anyone that confidence? There was a period in life when I was supposed to learn decision-making and now is the period when that skill would've been applicable.

But at the very least I have come to that realisation, right? From here on, it's smooth, active sailing to replace jerky, passive coasting. This calls for manifests and slogans. My fellow communists were good at that, though I never saw things like

"Knowing what I want!"
"Making decisions consciously and confidently!"
"Expressing your likes and dislikes vocally!"
"Living actively!"

plastered on walls of Moscow's buildings. Maybe the last one, but that was more about taking cold showers and early-morning runs to stay healthy.

My slogans to this point have been much more succinct and less exclamatory:

"Ugh"
"Maybe"
"I don't know"
"Yes?"

work in progress, I reckon...

Fall

2008-09-19T14:00:00.002-04:00

I think it's finally here. I felt cold in my fitted t-shirt last night. That t-shirt that hugs my pecs just so when I remember to straighten my back, almost calling out to the ladies on the D train. "Look at me!" say my pecs in that fitted t-shirt. Sometimes I think my pecs are a little desperate for attention. I'd much rather they behaved like my abs do, sucking the little Buddha in and creating an aura of mystery. Does he have a gut or doesn't he, ask themselves the pretty girls and the pretty boys. It doesn't look like he does, so does that mean he has a six-pack, they wonder. Subtle abs. You always get the girls with that one.

So yeah, fall is here. And with fall comes that nagging feeling that you just missed doing something, that the opportunity was there just a week ago when it was warm but you missed it and now it's gone and now you have to wear a whole bunch of clothes and stop sucking in your gut and let your back settle into its natural scoliotic shape.

At least there's apple-picking. Mmm...apples.

The Windsor Knot of Life

2008-09-02T10:10:00.002-04:00

Luisa and I went to a wedding on Sunday - a very pleasant and, for once, seemingly meaningful affair as these things go. Side note: Check out Baby Soda Jazz Band. They're really, really good. And read Newsweek. To support our just-married friends. They're lovely people.

But before we ever got to the wedding, there was the tie-tying procedure. Somehow, at my ripe 30, I am still experiencing every tie-knot for the first time. It could be described as the exact opposite of learning to ride a bike for me - I always forget how to do it. I think my distaste for wearing formal outfits, and ties in particular, is so strong as to eradicate any memories of learning the Windsor, the half-Windsor and the Pratt (in case you're wondering, these names are remembered only thanks to extensive research I JUST did on Sunday and will be forced out by next weekend). So the process starts from the beginning every time. "Fold the longer wider end over the shorter, narrower end...."

The thing that made me slightly sad was that I was looking at a pictorial step-by-step on the Internet tubes to figure out how to do it. I remember when my mother did my first few ties and then when my dad would knot the ties on himself and then simply transfer them onto my neck. You could sense care and pride in their attempts at making me look "presentable". A tie is intimate in a way that a coat or a hat can never be. The closest thing resembling it is a bandage, put on with care and affection. The difference there is that you're not bleeding when someone puts on a tie. Hopefully.

Point is, tieknot.com and the like have officially replaced a human tutorial (and Luisa, for that matter, although I'm not sure she knows how to tie a tie anyway). They've replaced another opportunity for a family that ties ties instead of saying "I love you" to feel close to each other. Again, I'm no internet basher, I'm just being cognizant of my losses.

For the first time in my life, I decided to try the Pratt knot and I quite like it, as knots go. It's symmetrical, unlike every single other knot I've ever worn in my entire life, and, in some twisted way, fun. So your parents' love goes only so far in tie-knotting. For the rest, try www.tie-a-tie.net, or any other tie-tying resource (Google search produced 1.8 million hits. Really??).

Death by Cartooning - Day 8

2008-08-20T15:50:00.003-04:00

Things are definitely looking up for me. Every new adventure now has a 50/50 chance of not killing me. In the following setup, for example, I'm simply a slave to my job.

Note: Sue is my executive producer and is the nicest person you'll ever meet, so this is a very inaccurate depiction of her plans for me.

pictures of beautiful things

2008-08-20T12:20:00.002-04:00

It's hard to judge some photographers' skills based the pictures they took. After all, how can you screw up taking a picture of something as beautiful as an island in the balmy Pacific Ocean? The beautiful practically crawls into your digital point-and-shoot, begging to stay with you until you can get to the nearest Flickr-uploading station.

That having been said, I may have left some beautiful on the beaches of Maui. For the ones that I managed to bring with me, check out my Flickr page.

Hawaii-Schmawaii

2008-08-20T11:48:00.002-04:00

First of all, let me state with emphasis that my left nipple itches something fierce. I have two theories for this.

One is that my semi-daily (read, rare) push-up sessions are expanding my pecs so much that the skin can't keep up with the muscle. Why that happens on the left side only puzzles me. But look, if I were to develop a superhuman pec on one side of my body that will go on to save the world, who am I to question my body's logic?

The second theory is that I have contracted a rare, highly contagious and deadly flesh-eating virus that is currently eating away at my nipple. First the nipple, then the world!

So here I sit, a week after my return from the beautiful, tropical, seemingly still innocent, mostly clean, comfortably warm, prohibitively expensive and just as prohibitively far Hawaii, wondering if I am to be an ultimate villain or an ultimate saviour (the "u" is for uncertainty, for those watching my grammar. I'm looking at YOU, Blogger! Stop underlining my words!).

In the meantime, let me put some lotion on that itching nuisance.

new place

2008-07-29T11:34:00.003-04:00

To give you a taste of our new residence, here's a picture of our backyard. The rest can be found on my Flickr page, which you should visit immediately for the ultimate in residential photography. Or because you haven't ever seen a strawberry plant.

And don't judge the yellow spots on the lawn. Lest your yellow spots be judged.

groceries

2008-07-15T12:40:00.003-04:00

"How I know I'm a yuppie"

by ilya

I know I'm a yuppie when I stand in line at a grocery store and a man in front of me loads up on 5-6 bags of groceries and pays $25.04 and I then come up and buy this

for $14.07. That's how I know I'm a yuppie.

The end.

manufacturing joy

2008-07-14T11:35:00.002-04:00

There's such a thing as too aware. For instance, I've become aware this morning that I really do work for the devil. The devil being the entire advertising/marketing industry. This came as no surprise to me, but the particular trigger for today's specific epiphany was none other than a tray of Mike and Ike's candy.

You see, I don't eat Mike and Ike's candy. For that matter, I try not to eat anything similar to Mike and Ike's - bright, sugary, bad for you. However, I am just a self-righteous, pseudo-health nut and our clients don't care about my beliefs for the most part. Therefore, we place trays of Mike and Ike's, M&Ms and Skittles in front of them in an attempt to treat them the same way many of them treat us - like children.

I decided that at least one of those trays will be filled with something that I actually enjoy. And so I started scooping handfuls of Mike and Ike's candy out of its tray, occasionally prying a stuck one off the side. The process wasn't emotionally conflicting until I looked at the garbage bag (because, naturally, I was throwing them out). And that's when it hit me.

Mike and Ike's candy is the color of joy. I was throwing joy into a garbage bag and refilling the tray with shades of brown nuts - the color of poo. Regardless of how you look at it, I was working for the devil. Either the devil that made Mike and Ike's candy the color of joy, so that kids would reach for it, Or I was working for the kind of devil that hated children and spitefully laughed as they reached for Mike and Ike's, saying "You want this? There it is, in the garbage can! Go and get it, you dirty little boy!"

So perhaps it's high time that nuts got a better marketing strategy. I mean, who successfully sells things the color of poop? Genetic plant engineering should've reached the kind of heights that would allow us to to apply ROY G. BIV to nuts (and legumes, in case of peanuts).

In the meantime, I will spend the rest of the day sitting next to a trash can of joy.

Death by Cartooning - Day 7

2008-07-11T14:42:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I died. You may think that to be a sign of improving relations between myself and my art-nemesis. But the explanation I'm getting from a reliable source is that the artist has simply been too busy to kill me.

Well, the wait is over. I have, once again, been killed. Albeit in a simpler way, but it feels good just to be back on a piece of paper.

The curious addition to this cartoon is that I lost my English, gained a mustache and have become generally less attractive. Maybe he DOES hate me!

so long, Harlem

2008-07-11T12:34:00.003-04:00

There's one week left in my 5-year tenure in Harlem. I feel sad and relieved at the same time. Sad, because I've come to love the neighborhood and my apartment. How can you not love a 2-bedroom apartment that, until next month, is worth "only" $1,720 a month? (For those living outside New York, that statement is equivalent to "How can you not love a 30-acre plot with a 3,500 sq. ft house and an exotic petting zoo that, until next month, is worth only $1,720 a month?") Thanks, in part, to Luisa, I finally started feeling like I was a part of the area, like my seeming, largely self-imposed, exclusion was a natural part of Harlem's life - "There'll always be white boys hanging around".

Except that new life was transitional, it seems. The early waves of gentrification, that I now resignedly accept I was a part of, have turned into a flood. There are too many white boys now. The last 6 months have seen a virtual explosion of gentrification in Central Harlem. I've seen a huge change just over this past week - nannies with white kids, white mothers supervising stroller gangs with their fellow mothers and general yuppie-dom taking over the entire area. There is now a Starbucks down the block from the better-priced and more neighborhood-appropriate (and local-owned) Tribal Spears coffee shop. Which one do you think has more people in it?

So it's time to move on. Whole Foods is building a store on the Upper West Side. That can only mean that the days of the projects located in the area are numbered. Go the way of Stuy town, except in this case the people being pushed out aren't the (upper)middle-class folks with amazing rent-controlled flats. These will be much poorer people. And I don't want to be here when that becomes the norm in Harlem. Want no part of it, really. Even if I helped start the trend.

But enough whining. I am no subscriber to Phil Gramm, but the man may have a point. Positive attitude! Harlem may be getting gentrified, but I see enough people support its as yet surviving institutions to have a little bit of hope. I just don't want to be around in case it's not enough.

So to Sunset Park we go. To land of private houses, backyards and amazing asian and latin-american cuisine. To a place mostly free of yuppies, unless we fit that bill, where grocery stores are free of big-chain affiliations, where rents are controlled only by lack of market pressure on them (give it a few more years), where bars are virtually non-existent and where a giant, Olympic-sized pool is exactly a half-block away. Welcome to the land of urban suburb. Urburb, if you will.

Now who wants to pack for us?

Weak O' Salads - Day 6

2008-06-21T15:47:00.006-04:00

Still unsure of whether I'm eating a salad today, I decided to make an effort to continue this admirable and gender-bending exercise. The day, however, had other plans, so I started it with a chicken kebab, doused in BBQ sauce. Delicious.

Lots of bread products, some butter with those, fresh strawberries, some orange juice and...another salad
Tomatoes, feta cheese, lettuce, radishes, olive oil, red wine vinaigrette, salt and away I go. The salad is devoured in mere seconds as I watch Russia trounce the Netherlands 3-1. This is an unbelievable win and I must've walked a good mile while being nervous about this game. So that salad has been worked off.
more bread

And then I went to my sister's birthday party. XO Creperie, in Brooklyn, is a delicious place. Even there, I managed to have salads. 3 of them. Then beef kebabs, then tuna tartar, then fried potatoes and shiitake mushrooms, then lamb shank, veal patty in mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes, more bread and butter and topped off with watermelon. There may or may not have been 6 shots of vodka along the way. Hard to recall.

I think I answered my own question of when Weak O' Salads would be over. It was fun.

Time to hit the gym. And not blog about it, this time.

Weak O' Salads - Day 5

2008-06-21T15:41:00.002-04:00

I have no idea what I ate on Friday, now that I think about it.
I just remember the salad. I'll never forget the salad....

I had a few carrots in the morning, I remember that
Salad for lunch from Tossed. Damn good, though not as good as Lenny's - Asian Chicken Salad (chopped) - Crisp hearts of romaine, freshly roasted chicken, shredded carrots, toasted almonds, mandarin oranges, sugar snap peas and wonton crisps with honey sesame dressing

See?

mixed nuts
half a leftover philly cheesesteak sandwich, courtesy of an unknown co-worker. Thanks, unknown co-worker!
3 Blue Moons
1 mojito
more carrots

Weak O' Salads - Day 4

2008-06-20T09:39:00.004-04:00

Yesterday is a bit of a blur, as I finally got to actually work during the day, therefore reducing the amount of attention paid to ludicrous posts about a non-diet.

However, I know the meaning of commitment (even if I'm never sure if I'm spelling it right), so here's Thursday's line-up.

Banana
mixed nuts (nuts and apples, man, I don't know what it is. I must have them!)
Salad - exactly the same as Day 3, but not chopped. Let me tell you, if you have that choice, chop the damn salad!! The experience was significantly less enjoyable because the giant pieces of romaine lettuce smeared the low-fat honey mustard all over my face. Go me for forgetting to request a chopped salad. Lesson learned. Move on.
3/4 of a cupcake - it was our front desk manager's birthday. Good cause, I feel no regrets. And yes, I referred to our receptionist as a front desk manager. Spread the word.
plain bagel with peanut butter
2 Blue Moons

It's almost over. I have yet to decide if Saturday and Sunday are to be included in the Weak O' Salads. Thoughts?

Weak o' Salads - Day 3

2008-06-19T07:27:00.000-04:00

The day started with a banana. I thought of banilla while I chewed on the soft flesh of the banana. It wasn't a good emotional experience.

Followed by:

large apple (The size of it lead me to believe it was a mutant apple sent to Earth to destroy the human race. I had no choice but to throw myself at the apple and save the rest of humanity.)
Small romaine salad with apples, cracked pepper turkey, chick peas, egg whites and low-fat honey mustard dressing on the side, only half of which was consumed (the dressing)
small bread bun with butter
mixed nuts
black beans and rice
an apple
(and then it went downhill)
12-grain toast with butter
delicious brownie with some nice black tea

What's with the apples?? By biblical standards, I should have all the friggin' knowledge in the world by this point. What can I say, when the snake says "eat the apple", I eat the apple. Who am I to contradict the messenger of evil?

Weak o' Salads - Day 2

2008-06-18T11:14:00.001-04:00

First of all, "banilla" is a retarded name for a yogurt. I know that you're trying to combine banana and vanilla, but banilla just sounds stupid. Change it, Stonyfield Farms, please! Otherwise, I'm going to trademark "vanerry" and that will not lead us to a good place. Vanerrial yogurt is unpopular in most countries.

So, to continue to undermine my culturally-prescribed role as a straight male, let me list the elements of yesterday's (Tuesday) meals.

Started off with a banana
half-sandwich from Pret a Manger (great place) with chicken, avocado, leafy stuff
mixed nuts and fruit for snack
salad for lunch - romaine lettuce, thai chicken, chick peas, feta, croutons and olive oil
roast turkey on a roll with lettuce and mayo for dinner
half a serving of terrible rice pudding!
White Russian

I also augmented my meals with a heap of Incredible Hulk, which was surprisingly better than I expected. I don't completely disrespect Ed Norton for taking the role!

It's sabotage!

2008-06-17T13:49:00.002-04:00

It smells like dog shit in our office, which gives me a fantastic idea. What if I brought a real dog into the office and made it poop and that smell would then mask me pooping somewhere else in the office, therefore creating poop chaos! To borrow from a great man - Poopocalypse!

just an idea.

Weak o' Salads - Day 1

2008-06-16T17:09:00.004-04:00

Today marks the beginning of...a new beginning. This entire week, in an effort to cleanse myself of the horrible diet followed last week, I am attempting to eat a salad a day. You will instantly find flaw with this plan, because no man (woman or child) can survive on a salad a day and there would be plenty of opportunities for me to go astray, but this is a loosely-structured plan and I can simply promise myself to not eat "poorly".

This is the day and age when "poorly" has 15 different connotations, so here are mine:

1. No extra fat (a little is ok)
2. No giant portions
3. No cheating by using option 1 to excuse option 2 (i.e. gorging myself on watermelon)
4. At least 3 servings of fruit a day (1 or 5 is also ok)

So Day 1:

Banilla fat-free yogurt with 2 strawberries for breakfast
Mixed nuts and dried fruit for snack
salad with greens, apples, chicken, walnuts, blue cheese and balsamic vinaigrette
slice of bread
mixed nuts and dried fruit
half an orange
rice and beans
glass of red wine
shit ton of mini carrots

For some, this post is a confirmation that I am either gay, a woman or both.

Eh.

My inspiration

2008-06-13T09:15:00.004-04:00

On the way to work today, I was getting angry at Michelle Malkin. I think I may have seen a paisley scarf hanging outside one of the garment district vendors' stalls and it made me think of her. I started imagining the angry letter I would write her, the offers to get her laid, so she would chill out and lead a more tolerant, normal life.

And in my seething I realised something. Michelle Malkin probably gets laid plenty (although she's married with kids, so that's a big assumption). That wasn't the thunderbolt idea I eventually had, but it was a good start. From there, I imagined what she does for a living - which is basically the prehistoric version of blogging - Op-Ed pieces for the Post and multiple appearances on Fox News. And look, I don't want to put down what I've been doing for 1.5 years, but like I've thought before, this is digital masturbation at best. But I suppose the difference between myself and MM (or some other bloggers) is that she gets paid for what I'm doing right now. And I know most of it is hateful vitriol that may incite violence, but it simply proves once again that this is a great country. I mean, she's getting paid for being bigoted, doing no research and masking her meager efforts as journalism! It really makes you believe that you can be anything you want and succeed.

And that is inspiring. It's a lot of other things as well, but I choose to be positive this morning.

one-eyed illy

2008-05-30T09:43:00.005-04:00

If you ever wondered what a person who's had corrective eye surgery on only one eye looks like, wonder no more.

A week ago I went in for a PRK procedure, which, I'm lead to understand, is an older, more mature and, therefore, safer brother of Lasik. The doctor recommended that I get one eye done at a time "just in case". The "just in case" argument has a magic, indefinable quality to me, overruling any objections I may have. Not being a thoroughly convinced (or convincing) person myself, I am of the "what if?" and the "just in case" persuasion.

Big mistake. It turns out that when you can see out of one eye and not the other, you can be rather inconvenienced. Perhaps more than any doctor can fail to warn you about. And believe me, they'll fail to warn you about it. Luisa, for example, has become an unexpected combination of a clearly attractive woman and a somewhat unidentifiable, vaguely humanoid, potentially female haze. Depending on which eye I use.

The long-term view is that this is going to be one of the best big decisions I've made for myself. I cannot wait for the day, not 2 weeks into the future, when I can finally cast off my glasses and see. Or see most things, since I'm under strict instructions to wear sunglasses whenever I'm outside. Which has it's own positive qualities, like making me look like a cool fly.

I promise to write a much more ecstatic post at a later date, when the shackles of poor vision have been cast off.

flipside

2008-05-20T12:17:00.003-04:00

Which brings me to the positive development of the day. In my search of justice, I have come across this website that allows you to borrow other people's passwords (presumably willing people) for various other websites.

So if someone shares a Snapfish album with you and you don't want to register for an account with the evil photo-sharing trolls and you don't want to order any photos, use BugMeNot.com

word.

Snap the fish!!

2008-05-20T11:54:00.003-04:00

So after losing my photos a few months back, I decided to try and download the ones I have saved on photo-sharing sites back to my computer. The earlier photos were to come first, so I started with my photo-sharing equivalent of a first girlfriend - Snapfish.

Snapfish, lest I make you believe otherwise, is not the worst site if all you want to do is order prints of your photos. Their prices are decent and the quality isn't bad.

But heed my warning - do NOT expect to get those photos back. In their infinite wisdom and without any advance notice, they hijack your pictures. You have to pay Snapfish in order to download a hi-res file of your own photos back to your computer. The more I think on it, the less of a legal basis I think they have for this. If their Terms and Conditions don't overtly state their ownership of my photos, how can they charge me for them? Tricky.

Basically, don't EVER use them as your backup. The bastards screwed me.

CNN loves bullshit

2008-05-15T14:11:00.003-04:00

And I don't mean false information or bad reporting. I literally mean the word "bullshit".

Reporting on Joe Biden's reaction to President Bush's remarks in Israel yesterday (May 15), CNN used the word enough times to overwhelm the censors, allowing an unedited version this horrendous word to assault the eyes of CNN's innocent readers.

24 hours later the mistake still hasn't been caught and I hope it never will.

jumping the gun

2008-05-15T11:44:00.002-04:00

I got an extremely forward-looking letter in the mail a couple of days ago. My "friends" at Pinelawn addressed it to "Mr. and Mrs.", already separating themselves from reality. The separation was compounded by the fact that Pinelawn is none other than Pinelawn Memorial Park and Garden Mausoleums ("The Largest in the East").

I don't have a problem with forward-thinking businesses, but there is something creepy about being encouraged to get a grave site at the age of 30, before I'm even married! And while being laid to rest at "The Largest in the East" memorial park is enticing, the visitors to the park, as presented by the collage on the front the postcard, are all trapped in 1980s fashion. I am actually getting a postcard from the dead!! Maybe I'm thinking too much about it, but I think I might leave my lights on for a few nights. Because Pinelawn Memorial Park and Garden Mausoleum might be coming for me. Especially after I announce right here, right now, that I'd like to be cremated....

Oh, man, I think I hear the shoulder-padded dresses marching!!

the next day

2008-05-11T23:05:00.002-04:00

It is a sign of aging and some version of maturity to discover that when you wake up the morning after betting hammered, you haven't done anything shameful. On the contrary, you told a bunch of people that you love them and meant it. I suppose that's something to be proud of. After all, I could've also tried to break into a luxury building that is completely unoccupied to see what its awesome apartments look like.

Oh wait....

friends

2008-05-10T20:36:00.004-04:00

As I get drunker and drunker with my dad's friends from college (here visiting for the first time ever), I realise something. Friends are the reason you cook the best thing you can think of. Friends are the reason you raise a glass and say something heartfelt that you actually mean. Friends make you honest and true. And friends are worth traveling 10,000 miles for. And if your friends are your significant others (guilty!) or people you went to college with (also guilty!) and you can still make them travel half-way around the world 40 years after you became friends with them, your life wasn't wasted. And you should cherish them forever.

Now back to the presentation brought to you by Grey Goose. I.E., I need another shot.

Green medal #1

2008-05-07T11:09:00.003-04:00

Mostly for my own sake, but possibly to serve as inspiration for others, i've decided to document our household's accomplishments in reducing our carbon footprint on the planet. There was that year-long experiment that a family ran in an East Village apartment, where they produced as close to zero emissions as was possible. I can't do that. I need to add a lot more crazy to my brain stew in order to achieve that.

In the meantime, i'm going to start patting myself on the shoulder....

Plastic Bags

Considering that most of the time I carry a bag of some sort (backpack, messenger) or that I go grocery shopping from home, I have made it a point to try and not use plastic bags. At a bare minimum, I believe I conserve a bag a week. The truth is that it's probably more like 2-3. Let's take a less conservative, but realistic estimate of 2 bags a week and that would add up to 104 plastic bags saved during a year. That's just by me. I'm not even counting Luisa in this equation.

Open up the cabinet where your plastic bags are overflowing and count how many you have. 20? 45? And at that number, none of us really know what to do with those bags. They're everywhere! They crawl into the other part of your cabinet reserved exclusively for cleaning supplies.

Now collect 104 plastic bags and spread them on the floor. It'll look like you're in a club that, instead of foam, is dousing the floor with petrochemical byproducts.

The old, trusted solutions are canvas bags. Any multiple-use bags are fine, really. The point is to remember to use them. And I think that has been the recent difference for me. Enough eco-crazy has seeped into me that I find myself automatically telling cashiers "I don't need a bag", which may result in me walking home with Rogaine and laxatives in my hands.

Although I deny that that has ever happened.

dog names

2008-05-07T11:05:00.002-04:00

While under the influence, Luisa and I came up with fantastic names for our future dogs. We'll have 2 and they will both be females. One will be Bitch and the other one will be Female Dog.

The fun part will come when we walk them out in public and they run away. Or if we have kids and they are asked to talk about their pets in elementary school. The fun you could have is endless!!!

Although the likelihood of having to homeschool my own children gives me pause. After all, maybe there are other good names for dogs out there.

....

nah, can't think of any.

work rant

2008-04-21T21:57:00.003-04:00

Should you find yourself in a position to make other people work late for free on a project that may ultimately bring no money to those people (or to you, for that matter) - don't. Let people go home on time. If the reason they are working late is because you didn't have a creative brief set in stone or because you are really a generally incompetent person as an organizer or leader or thinker, don't make others suffer for your shortcomings. Because if you do, that makes you an asshole with no good reason to be one.

And how have we, as a society, not yet passed a law, or at least a common sense agreement, to depose people in power who happen to be needless assholes? Think of the savings in health insurance if those people were replaced with need-only assholes? Fewer cases of depression, better immune systems (surely boosted by the knowledge that the work you do has been duly justified and will lead to an end of some sort, rather than be abandoned the day after you stay at work until midnight to finish it), better outlook on life in general, fewer wasted work hours. It's like heaven.

Instead, the collective indifference results in misery, caused a needless asshole making needless last-minute changes in pointless minutiae of a project.

Seriously, if I don't get my red stapler back (or at least some respect), I'm gonna burn this place down.

Project Idea # 11

2008-04-15T12:38:00.002-04:00

After a long period of dormancy, I've come up with yet another brilliant business venture...for someone else to pursue.

Wired magazine, and many other forward-thinking publications, often make predictions about the "next big thing". So I wanted to take a stab at it. Because I'm very much like Wired. In some subtle sense that nobody can uncover.

Anyway, the internet is increasingly flooding with ads. People want to make money and that's the most obvious way to do it, I suppose, other than actually selling products on a site (I have 4 chairs in good to functional condition that I need to sell, by the way. $20 for all 4). Even BBC News was forced to sell ad space on their site! Well, I am sensing that there is increasing frustration with those ads. I know that my preference would be to visit an ad-free site every time, so what if there was a service that, for a monthly fee, ensured that the sites you visited were ad free. I imagine it would work something like this:

1. You click on Facebook (BBC, Yahoo, BoingBoing, Engadget, NYTimes, CollegeHumor, etc) and the request goes through to this application

2. It would need to have access to the code of the page and the ability to strip it of ads.

3. And then it would need to pay that page for the loss of ad revenue. Which is why it would be charging a premium in the first place.

Err, this sounds complicated. But you know what I mean. Evans, you should do it and be rich.

In local news...

2008-04-14T09:29:00.002-04:00

I stumbled across this site, which is similar in nature and intent to NYCBloggers and other geography-based blogs (I can't think of any others, but there are others). Just another thing to waste my time on.

"Hey, what's going on outside? Can't go out. Must stay in and read this blog about it!"

I like pictures....

2008-04-11T12:42:00.001-04:00

No reason. I just wanted this on my site.

music for your ears

2008-04-11T12:38:00.002-04:00

Check out this site. If you're not a music junkie and don't keep up with the newest and latest and greatest. Or even the oldest and firmest and tastiest.... What am I talking about here?

Basically, this has some good music. Sometimes it's not to your taste. Fine. Click on another playlist and stop complaining.

Goodbye, computer

2008-04-11T12:31:00.002-04:00

My computer has become that relationship where you don't form permanent bonds and really just use each other for sex. If my computer was a girl, that is. Or if my computer was a boy and I was really, really tripping. But you know what I mean. It crashed again 3 days ago and I reinstalled Windows XP. The default, acid background of Windows XP greeted me at the end of the reinstall and, with its neon gaudiness, announced that our relationship is forever confined to loosely browsing the internet and occasionally sending a few e-mails. Downloads, serious work and any other kind of commitment were out of the question. And I so looked forward to settling down with it....

Maybe I'll cheat on it with a MacBook Pro.... She's always shaking her hot, overpriced, supermodel magnetic power cord at me.

Mother

2008-04-10T17:53:00.001-04:00

So I went to Russia a few weeks back.

it was nice.

my new baby

2008-04-09T13:44:00.002-04:00

See that?

That's mine. I'm picking it up within a week. And making sweet, spandex-fitted love to it.

I'm back!

2008-04-06T10:57:00.002-04:00

I was not in outer space and I don't have a sad look on my face, but I am back. I give no promises of consistent blogging but I will provide you with updates on my life. Soon. After I go to Brooklyn and abuse my family's and Luisa's generous offer to purchase me a new bike. Let's see, if the math doesn't fail me, the equation goes something like this:

Love*monthly income=$1,700 custom-fitted hybrid

Basic algebra!

If ever

2008-03-03T12:07:00.002-04:00

you find yourself in new york city, please let me know. I've decided to spend more time with friends. Rather, I've decided to reach out to friends and encourage them to spend time with me. My other modus operandi of waiting for others to invite me to things was subverted by people's misguided perception that I am too awesome to approach. That much like seeing god's true face would cause instant death for those still alive, my appearance would burst important vessels in my friends' brains. It isn't true, but I will take matters into my own hands regardless.

And if someone's brain does happen to explode, I want you to know that I had nothing to do with it.

I don't like kids!!!!

2008-03-03T12:01:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, Luisa and I were eagerly approached by a young woman, asking us if we had some time to help save the children. Now, normally I make a sour face that's supposed to make people understand that ANY other time I would give my entire salary to help the children, but it was at that EXACT moment that children were out of luck, as far as I was concerned. I don't know if the expression ever worked in that magical way, but it usually did for me.

Luisa, in a particularly playful mood, decided to add a verbal excuse. Namely, that she "doesn't like kids". I came up with a new equation that day:

righteous volunteer fundraiser + off-color joke = angry righteous volunteer fundraiser

It turns out that we weren't the first ones to tell her that we don't like kids. There have been many before us. But I think we were that proverbial straw that broke her camel-like back. Boy, was she angry.

Lesson being that we need to revert back to an age-old strategy - cross the street to the other side. The kids will never know.

road trip

2008-02-15T12:15:00.003-04:00

As homage to Evans, I'm posting a real entry about a fictional town where I would theoretically like to drive if it wasn't in the middle of the ocean. You know, THAT ocean. The town is named after a type of tree, which was famously labeled after a mountain where the botanist who found it is buried. It's complicated. The origins of the word are murky, is what I am saying.

But if I get a chance, I'm definitely driving out to "Iogreuihwergbi". And you should come.

oh, Friday, you're so....

2008-02-15T11:47:00.003-04:00

Fridays should be prohibited from being bad. Even when I'm busy, which I expect to be today, Friday is arguably the best day of the weekend. Because you know it's going to be over soon and after that you have 2 days of rest! It's the Christmas Eve of weekends!

So when a Friday starts off poorly, it's a real downer (meanwhile, the thing that makes me chuckle a little bit, as I write about Friday, is the nagging stream of lame jokes at the expense of Robinson Crusoe's companion). The only saving grace for this Friday morning is an objective look at what was the last straw in a series of small mishaps. You see, on top of being told off by my father (not that bad), being sleep-deprived (not that bad), not being ready for going away this weekend (not that bad), I also didn't buy tickets to the latest production of "Macbeth" at Brooklyn Academy of Music that features Patrick Stewart.

Seeing the excited "Sold Out!" sign on the BAM website (be apologetic, you bastards, not excited!) puts my life into perspective - missed opportunities, wasted time, procrastination, indecision leading to disappointment, etc.

But here's what makes missing "Macbeth" slightly funny. I like Shakespeare, but I like Patrick Stewart even more. I mean, he helmed easily the best "Star Trek" series of my time. His Cpt. Pickard is an example of what a real man should be like. Yes, that is why I wanted to see "Macbeth" - because Cpt. Pickard was in it.

You see? I may be an idiot, but I am a funny idiot. With any luck and determination, I too will boldly go where I have not gone before.

Volgograd on BBC

2008-02-12T17:03:00.000-04:00

A quick essay from a BBC correspondent about the hometown of my mother's family. I've spent many summers there as a baby and that bombed out building is a few blocks from where some of my relatives still live. That building claims the dubious honor of being the most complete building left at the end of the battle for Stalingrad. That's some fucked up shit. And the bit about Russia winning WWII is right. Every single Russian will tell you the exact same thing.

Guilty pleasures

2008-02-11T10:57:00.000-04:00

Luisa and I figured out a way to deal with Sunday night blues. We went to see "How She Move" at the Magic Johnson last night, fully expecting to enjoy the dancing and laugh at the writing. At least, I did. For those who don't know, "How She Move" is another in a line of dance-oriented movies that focus on the performances and quick editing rather than story lines and writing (we've also seen "Stomp The Yard" and recently re-viewed "Save the Last Dance").

I think both of us were pleasantly surprised on several levels. The acting was good, especially by Rutina Wesley in the lead role. In fact, I thought she was better than good. The stepping seemed real, for the most part, and not the sound effects-laden absurdity that other movies present. Then again, what do I know about stepping? But when the sounds of the dancing dominate the music in the background, they're either trying to be real or the mixer for the film needs to be fired. I prefer the latter.

The writing was also really solid. Sure, there were some loose ends and an occasional cliche, but the themes were real, the dialogue felt true and the filming location wasn't an abandoned warehouse meant to simulate the hard-knocks life of the characters. I think they shot in an actual 'hood in Toronto (Is a ghetto in Canada nicer than any other ghetto??).

Anyway, I know what the IMDB ratings are (3.5 out of 10?), but the movie really is worth seeing as a guilty pleasure. But what do I know? My expectations were so low that I could've watched "Roscoe Jenkins" and loved it.... That's not true.

presents!!

2008-02-05T10:02:00.001-04:00

I found what I want for my 30th birthday. What that man is wearing. And I don't mean the Mr. Rogers-style jacket.

I think I'm kidding, but it's hard even for me to tell. Would I wear it? Would I be assaulted? Would I assault myself upon seeing a reflection? Would wearing it open up new emotions in my deeply concealed soul?

There is only one way to find out. Get me that tie. My birthday is in April.

And for the love of all that's holy, look at the other pictures on that site. The person put a lot of work into it.

a thousand words

2008-02-04T17:11:00.000-04:00

A picture is worth a thousand words, unless that picture is unrecoverable on a failed hard drive of your laptop. My rough estimates make me believe that I have close to a million words trapped beyond help. I briefly considered blogging more to make up for the loss of so many words to the world. I realise now that while some of my photos are beautiful, artistic and have personal sentimental value, my blogging doesn't quite have the same effect. So mourn for my photos, friends, and trust that I will learn from my mistakes and back up my media in the future.

I hope Blogger is backing up these masterpieces.

new policy

2008-02-03T17:41:00.000-04:00

Sitting on the subway last night and listening to a guy practicing some song that he's composing but that still sucks, I came up with a new philosophy on public statements, performances and anything else that is made public. If I hate it, I should have the freedom to say so, right? If someone is playing music and they're awful, shouldn't I be able to tell them so? I know that is considered to be mean, but if people can give the good performers money as encouragement, I'd like to tell the bad ones to find a new trade, the bad singers on the street to try poetry instead, the ugly slutty people that they need different clothes and a makeover. That's not mean, that's just balancing out the world.

So, guy on the subway, your musical talents may otherwise be stupendous, but my hearing is getting offended by your voice. Next time I see you, I'll feel more comfortable telling that to your face.

It's the little things

2008-01-25T16:01:00.001-04:00

You know you miss them when you don't have them. Or you appreciate them when a reminder hits you in the face. Remember when you were a child and you could freely put your hands in the mud and then all over your face? You took it for granted that mud was there to be put on the face. Face was the natural carrier of mud. Nobody thought you were strange at the time, just dirty and, depending on parental response time, neglected. Try it now. Try going to a muddy area and see how many people think you're "sooo cute". Take pictures. It makes you appreciate the freedom you had as a twelve-year-old (what? when did YOU stop doing it?).

I've recently developed an appreciation for sitting. Everyone will say that they readily appreciate opposable thumbs, eyesight, their relatively good health, a job, their children. Nobody appreciates sitting. It is publicly associated with fat guts, fluorescent-lit jobs, depression, Super Bowl, doctors' offices and being stuck in traffic. You periodically long for it on crowded public transportation while imagining it to be a sandy beach, surrounded by palm trees and servile monkeys. It would be the opposite of the sweaty, loud and borderline sexually harassing crowd that surrounds you, you fantasize.

See? You appreciate it when you don't have it. And it's not even a little thing. Not being able to sit is a big deal (which is somewhat dependent on the size of the thing you use for it). We must learn to appreciate it and not relegate it to the pile of neglected benefits we take for granted.

So please, treat sitting with care. Do it respectfully and with a bit of appreciation for every time you do it. And the next time someone complains about food poisoning, remind them that at least they can rest their weary ass on the toilet seat.

JCPenney wants YOU

2008-01-16T17:17:00.000-04:00

to go to this website to see my work.
Just be patient with the load time.

highly recommended

2008-01-14T10:36:00.000-04:00

I thought this article,although sometimes slightly complicated, was fascinating.

Read it fast, or they'll start requiring a password.

Museum of Doing It

2008-01-14T10:18:00.000-04:00

Luisa and I broke the mundane nature of Sunday afternoons by watching total strangers perform cunnilingus and fellatio on each other. It was only briefly exciting as the entire experience was ruined by a soothing female voice explaining how to perform each of those correctly. I felt as if my high school health teacher, Mrs. Burke (who was awesome, but in a completely non-sexual way), was observing me and telling me what I was doing wrong. Basically, the Museum of Sex confused my libido. I didn't know if I was supposed to be intellectual about the exhibits, oohing and aahing my way through it, or focusing on controlling my woody. In the end, neither one was much of a problem.

Museum of Sex isn't as racy in its presentation as you may think it is, but also much more interesting than the Robin Byrd fare you'd get on basic cable (channel 34 or 35 on Timewarner). It's certainly worth the trip and if you can avoid the prudes who accidentally stumble into the exhibits and loudly question the relevance of furries to sex, it'll be enjoyable.

A hated phrase - reinstated

2008-01-14T10:10:00.000-04:00

I think I came up with a legitimate use for the phrase "a case of the Mondays". The term "a case of" implies a malady of some duration. I think the incorrect usage of it by people who have nothing better to say to you on Monday morning is what drove it to the brink of extinction and gave it a pariah status. In a way, the person who suggests that you have "a case of the Mondays" is implying that you are suffering from a prolonged disease, that every Monday you are sad, depressed, angry, etc. I venture to say that, in most cases, the early Monday morning depression is temporary and irregular. You wouldn't expect someone who has a little bit of redness in the groin area for a random day to be accused of having "a case of the syphilis". It's insulting.

Therefore, it is only after an extensive observation and confirmation of an individual experiencing recurring bad Mondays, that anyone should be allowed to point out that they may have "a case of the Mondays."

I think I may have "a case of the Mondays". But I don't have syphilis.

Memories

2008-01-04T11:48:00.001-04:00

I decided to record some of my childhood memories, for fear of losing all of them shortly. So here's one I thought of on a subway platform this morning. I was in 4th grade, I believe, and my best friend at the time, a blond-haired kid named Andrey, and I were discussing our fates. We felt it certain that at some point in our lives we would be slapped by our wives. I suppose it's a testament to how we felt about grown-up relationships. Now, at that point, neither one of our virgin 11-year-old faces has been slapped by women (mine was punched by a man, but that's another memory), so we were naturally concerned. How would it feel if we got slapped? Would we cry and run to mommy? Would it sting unbearably and make us lesser men?

There was only one way to find out and prepare ourselves for the inevitable. We would slap each other. We would start small with light taps on the cheeks and proceed to full, unrestrained swings, inuring each other to the sting of the blows. And so it came to pass, in either our Russian and Literature or our Geography classroom, that 2 boys started slapping each other at the front of the class.

I have been slapped since then (ask me about The Flying Screw), but always while acting. And I have to say, I took it better than I could ever imagine it as an 11-year-old disillusioned with human relationships.

Promises, promises

2008-01-03T17:14:00.001-04:00

You know how everyone talks about the new year being a new beginning, a chance to start things fresh, to change your life for the better? Well, why, then, am I back at work, expecting to get paid less this year than in 2006? I think my owner didn't get the memo about new beginnings.

What a sham this new year is.

Project Idea #10 (the one that got away)

2008-01-02T23:20:00.000-04:00

It's a success story as old as this country. Brilliant idea is copyrighted, kept in secret until mostly developed, brilliantly launched as a beta test website, fully funded after initial success, marketed to the world as the next best thing, rolled out with virtual fireworks, profitable within days, sold for millions within months.

First - the brilliant idea. Listen to this:

Have you ever felt stumped about what to get the 15 people who demand gifts for Christmas? Not sure what they'll like, how much to spend on gifts, etc, etc? Well, go to PerfectGift.com and create a profile for the person you're shopping for. Your wife enjoys video games, hiking, traveling to foreign places, is self-confident, self-reliant, fluent in 5 languages and is training for a decathlon? Can I marry her?

Anyway, once you create the profile for the person, the website would suggest gifts, partnering up with a variety of online vendors. The more detailed your profile, the better the gift match. And the best thing is that it'll keep track of each of your profiles and the gifts you bought for that person. No identifying information necessary. You can call your wife "mom" on our service and we wouldn't question your need to see a therapist. Whatever works for you.

Well, Luisa and I only got that far. Because www.gifts.com got to everything else first. They stole our idea 2 years before we knew we would have it.

Normally, I'd link to a site. But I won't in this case. Not because I'm bitter, but because I feel their execution to be inferior to the idea we put forth. Check it out for yourselves.

From Austin with...confusion

2007-12-28T14:36:00.000-04:00

So I do have some time on my hands (37% battery life, to be exact) and a wifi connection that compel me to write something about my vacation. After having been here a number of times, most of them over Xmas breaks, I deem Austin to be different. That would be the one-word definition of the entire city. It's not "liberal", "hippie", "green", "young", "cool", or anything else you may think of it. It seems that the entire purpose of Austin's public image is to be different. Not in a pretentious or superior way. It simply acts as a magnet for people of all walks of life, who, through the power of the same magnet, agree to co-exist peacefully. Not necessarily enjoy each other's company, but that's not the point. The point is to provide a haven for all the weirdos that the rest of Texas rejects. Yeah, that's what this is - a haven.

Is NYC the same, but on a larger, more international scale? Is New York the Austin of the world? Or one of the Austins?

Our plan was to spend a week here and pretend that we live here. You know, in case we live here. There, I said it publicly, there is an off-chance that we may at some point in the not-so-foreseeable future move to a place outside the island of Manhattan.

But back to Austin. The winter weather here is particularly schizophrenic. The fluctuations in temperature are easily 30 degrees night to day. So you have to carry around 3 layers of clothing if you'll be out of the house for 10 hours straight. The real estate, compared to NYC, is amazing. There are beautiful, 1,700 sq.ft. houses that go for less than $300K. There are friendly people everywhere, although by New York standards most people I've talked to are FAR too friendly. There are tons of bikers, but the bike lanes seem to be an afterthought. There are things to do for most interests, but most of them seem to shut down relatively early. Unlike New York, Austin is a city that definitely sleeps.

To be continued....

See you next year...

2007-12-22T14:44:00.000-04:00

I'm out for the holidays. I am not so dedicated to writing purportedly witty posts to do it while vacationing in Austin, TX. Because I'll be too busy loading up on Mexican and BBQ cuisines. And coming down with some rare form of "too much red meat" disease.

I do have to say one thing about this season. I don't like it. There's too much obligatory gift-giving, family-seeing, hassle-enduring taking place. I think we should spread out the holidays over 4 months, rather than the 1.5 that it seems to be right now. That way everyone can go see their family at different times. We can go to a store and not feel like we're pick-pocketing fellow shoppers' bags because our hands have nowhere else to go in the crowd squeeze. To top it all off, it's at this time that one would need the support of those closest to you, but they all leave to do the exact same thing you're doing. Except in a different state, located hours of torturous, overbooked flight time away from you.

With that out of your mind, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! I hope they're wonderful, delicious, stress-free and that you all miss me terribly and call me to say so.

Word.

Everybody get drunk tonight

2007-12-20T12:30:00.000-04:00

Tonight's my company's Christmas party. It's an opportunity to remind myself of a number of things I may have forgotten during the year:

1. I'm a dork. I will undoubtedly try to entertain people with "funny" jokes and typical ilya antics. At which point they will shake their heads and say: "oh, ilya!", something that I always try to translate into "How are you so funny? It's undeniable and unbelievable!" But I think they mean something else.

2. I can't pick Christmas gifts for shit. Last year's White Elephant gift exchange was large enough to include amazing gifts and really awful ones. I managed to stand out even then by adding to the pile something that was neither obviously awful nor in any way amazing. It was a spirit shaker. And when you shook the shaker, you released not salt, pepper or oregano, but a mostly benevolent spirit. Imagine getting something like that at a holiday party. Needless to say, nobody stole that from the person who originally picked it up. The last thing you want to do to a spirit is steal it. Or own it in the first place.

3. There are co-workers that become less likable as their alcohol consumption increases. The good will that starts off the night evaporates the same way alcohol fumes seem not to. I know who those co-workers are, but I'm not telling. Because deep down inside, we're all decent people who simply shouldn't drink and become assholes. Except for me - I'm funny when I drink.

4. Just because the food is free and catered, doesn't mean it's any good. But that doesn't register until I consume well over 5 pounds of it.

Hope I have fun!

Ignorance for everyone!

2007-12-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

I just watched the Kellie Pickler fiasco on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?". If you haven't seen it, watch this. In fact, watch it before you read anything else.

Now, I already went through the standard judgmental phases of ilya, but let me list them for you for the sake of this argument:
1. Holy shit, i can't believe anyone can be this stupid! Obviously, it's Hungary!
2. Well, ok, not everyone would know it's Hungary, but thinking that Europe is a country is criminal!!
3. Even that's sort of understandable, but not KNOWING that France is one? Seriously. We've hated them on a national scale for years now!
4. Jeff Foxworthy made a slightly misogynistic funny. Good on ya, Jeff.
5. Jeff Foxworthy is a moron who doesn't know the answer himself

That last one is where I'm at right now. "Hungry"? Don't tell me it's his accent, because it's not. He actually thought the country whose name was written on his handheld card, was called "Hungry". So let me end this with number

6. You know how you know you're a redneck? If your name's Jeff Foxworthy and you can't read.

...

Was that too mean?

Subway encounters of the Middle Eastern kind

2007-12-14T11:41:00.000-04:00

I had a thought on the subway today. Just one. For an hour. Those who live in New York are potentially familiar with the brand of religious proselytizing that takes place on subway cars. Random people enter the train under the guise of normality and then ruin your morning commute by producing the Bible out of their bags and yelling for your salvation. But today there was a Muslim man on the train that I noticed. Setting aside the fact that my societally-formed prejudiced leanings probably caused me to notice his long beard and skullcap in the first place, I was intrigued when he got up at one of the stops and kept standing for a while. He reminded me of a Bible thumper and I wondered if he was about to start converting us.

Now get your imagination ready and use it on this little nugget - what do you think will happen if a person gets up off their seat, reveals themselves to be a Muslim and then starts a speech with "Allahu Akbar" instead of a "Hallelujah"? Would you think they were proselytizing? Because that wasn't the only thing I thought. And the reason I mention it in this public, 4-person forum is that I'm a little upset with myself over that other thought.

So use your imagination and see where it takes you in that scenario. And figure out if you feel comfortable with your thoughts. 'Cause I don't with mine. And may Jesus have mercy on your soul. Hallelujah and Allahu akbar.

A la Addams Family

2007-12-10T15:33:00.000-04:00

This is the creepiest thing I've seen on BoingBoing in a long time. Because when I think of comforting my nephews (which I do almost never), I think of large disembodied hands.

Buttermilk 101

2007-12-10T15:13:00.000-04:00

Here's some free advice, dear readers. When you drink a bit too much alcohol on Saturday and feel hungover all day Sunday, don't drink buttermilk on Monday. You may want to, and the urge will be strong, but resist it. Buttermilk + an already unhappy stomach = unhappy buttermilk drinker.

Death By Cartooning - Day 6

2007-12-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

I died again. This time, on Channukah. The art is getting more complicated and my deaths seem more gruesome. Have I pissed him off??

Dancing in Williamsburg

2007-12-09T23:38:00.000-04:00

If you haven't heard of the Streb Company, you're missing out on a really fun, childhood-reminiscent experience. So whenever they come to visit you, wherever you are, check them out. But if you can't wait for them to come to you, go to them. They're around for one more weekend with the current show and when you go, pay attention to the children in the audience. It seems like they are all genetically engineered to be beautiful. In fact, that was a large part of the experience, being surrounded by the greatest concentration of beautiful children I could ever imagine. It was frankly disturbing. I thought that maybe this was an exclusive "Beautiful Children and their Beautiful Parents" club and Luisa and I were just being tolerated. In any case, go see the show.

Death by Cartooning - Day 5

2007-12-04T13:05:00.000-04:00

This was actually the first cartoon in the series and the artist went easy on me. Sorry it's out of order, but it's ok to take a little break from dying and just be horribly injured, I think.

Dominican (I think) fare

2007-12-03T11:32:00.001-04:00

If you live in the vicinity of 125th and Amsterdam, as I do, you might consider the following as a take-out option. El Tina serves up delicious whole BBQ chicken with a side of delightful (when not burned) maduros and a radioactively-orange flan. Really, that's all we've ordered from there, but it's damn good.

If you're having trouble ordering in English, basic knowledge of Spanish numbers helps. Refer to Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" for most of those: "Uno dos tres cuatro cinco cinco seís". Followed by siete, ocho and nueve. If the delivery is taking too long, as it might, find a friend who lives in Dallas/Ft. Worth, speaks Spanish and happens to like you enough to call the restaurant in New York to request an ETA. Enjoy.

Communism for all!

2007-12-03T11:22:00.001-04:00

Some (I'm looking at YOU, Sauce) may claim that I am less of a pinko for opposing Chavez in the constitutional referendum in Venezuela. While I wouldn't even deign to respond to such spurious claims (740 on Verbal SATs, bitches!), I will state that on that same day I thought that the best course of action would be to support the Communist Party of Russia in the voting that was taking place across the ocean. For a variety of reasons. True, this was an entirely internal train of thought for me, shared with no one, but as our gloriously incapable president showed me, the best future defense is current offense.

All hail the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF)!

Keeping up with the Joneses

2007-11-29T10:28:00.000-04:00

It has just become easier to hate people you already hate. Just check to see whose presidential campaign they've contributed money to and let the hate wash over you like a warm, salty tide. And it works for your neighbors too, not just Jennifer Aniston. But if your neighbor IS Jennifer Aniston and you're reading this blog...are you looking for a roommate? Thanks to Luisa for this link.

Death by Cartooning - Day 4

2007-11-29T10:21:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry about being absent for nearly a month, but when you're constantly being killed, it's hard to blog. It's true. Look it up.

This one's for NASCAR

2007-11-29T09:53:00.000-04:00

Here's an idea, NASCAR. If you want New Yorkers to like you, don't block the busiest part of Manhattan during rush hour. Because when you block off 42nd street to 53th street at 8:30am on the same day as the Rockefeller tree lighting just so "10 of the world's best drivers" can do a victory lap and 150,000 non-New Yorkers arrive to gawk at them, it makes New Yorkers angry. So, don't do it. Silly NASCAR.

I'm cool, because...

2007-11-12T00:24:00.001-04:00

As Luisa asked me today: "Did you ever think you were cool because your last name ended with 'NIN', as in Nine Inch Nails?"

Well, NOW I do!

FMI - Heartless Bastards

2007-11-02T11:04:00.000-04:00

FMI, fyi, stands for "For My Information". So I need to check out this band, 'cause they sound pretty good. In fact, I need to check out more bands in general.

Hallowhine

2007-10-26T11:05:00.000-04:00

I think because I didn't grow up with the holiday, I never got into it. I've dressed up as the "Red Menace" (nobody got it) and Marilyn Monroe (everyone got it and thought I looked like one ugly Marilyn) and I didn't quite relive my childhood either time. So maybe I'm a grinch and a loser, but I'm not dressing up this year. Too many other things are going on to worry about picking a good costume (Superman with a gigantic erection was my top choice), so I'm not going to worry at all. But in the spirit of the holidays, here were some other choices. Feel free to add your creativity in the comments:

2. Bearded lady
3. Perseus, slayer of Medusa
4. Woody Allen
5. vagina